Wolves: Chapter 7

           I rose before the sun, as I always did, and took Cara’s cooing baby from his small crib, changing his diaper as quiet rays of light started coming through the locked shutters. I carried the child with me as I opened the shutters, checking to ground below to see if we had nighttime visitors still prowling. No sign of wolves, so I started pumping water and pulled wood in for a fire. The girls would want warm water to bathe before we started our jump.

            They began rising slowly, silent but smiling. I had been preparing them for weeks so even though it was sooner than I had intended, we were ready. Everyone knew today was a big day.

            We took turns helping the younger girls bathe, then I dressed them while the older girls got ready. Annette made sure everyone had breakfast of bread and apple slices and didn’t misplace their dresses in their small bags. No one owned much, but it was precious to them. I knew it would help them in their transition to the new world.

            “Is something wrong?” Kailah brushed a girl’s hair while I laced her boots. The little girl skipped off to beg some more apple slices from Annette.

            “Just worried,” I admitted. “I know I can jump everyone, but I usually have more time to prepare.” I glanced around the room. “I’m worried this will be my last jump before the masks catch me. I don’t have an apprentice like Faula did, so there is no one to take my place. I just…” I trailed off, rubbing my forehead and trying not to think about the girls who would be trapped in Dark Houses without me. I didn’t save them all, that was for sure. There were hundreds of Dark Houses but I frequented three and had visited seven total.

            Kailah took my hand and squeezed gently. “I’m sure this will go well. You know what you’re doing.”

            I smiled appreciatively. “Thank you, Kailah.”

            She followed me to the pump, were I filled a bowl to fill the tub again. “How many girls have you jumped?”

            “In total or at a time?”

            Kailah considered. “Both?”

            The fire was getting low, so I added a few logs, considering. “About fifteen at a time. Faula could do thirty. But I’ve never had that many girls at a time anyway, so I’ve never tried. Overall…probably six hundred?”

            She did some quick mental math. “That’s forty jumps. How long have you been doing this?”

            “Well…” I stepped onto the front porch and Kailah followed. I blew out the lamp that kept ghosts away at night and stared at the horizon. “I did it for about two with Faula. Then it took me ten years to build the portal…maybe ten years? After I finished the portal.”

            Kailah laughed. Her laughter was infectious and I started to smile, but I was confused. “What’s funny?”         

            “You can’t be older than twenty-five. You’re telling me you’ve been doing this for twenty-two years? Since you were ten?”

            I smiled wryly and shook my head. “I don’t age here. I’m a lot older than I look.”

            “How is it possible for you to not age here but to…I mean, you age in other worlds?”

            “Only in my homeplace.”

            “Where is that?”

            Annette appeared at the doorway. “We’re ready.”

Wolves: Chapter 6

An owl called its mate as the sun fell behind the horizon. The lamplighter had been eaten by the wolves years before, so the streets were dark as we walked. Kailah didn’t seem to notice. Like most of the girls, she was used to the dark.

            “Isn’t it dangerous for you to be seen with me?”

            I shook my head. “See the glimmer?”

            Kailah looked at my uplifted hand. She nodded.

            “It’s a spell. It will conceal us from watchful eyes while we walk. I just wish I could do it over all the girls.” I sighed. “But the book with the spell in it was lost with Faula so I don’t know how to make it any bigger than two or three people.”

            She waited, knowing I would continue.

            “I met your aunt when she came to the Dark House, where I was working.”

            “You worked at a Dark House?” Kailah’s eyes widened.

            “Yes. For seven months, before your aunt found me. She was posing as a customer, but she cast the same concealing spell I’m using now on us to help me escape. She offered to help others…but they refused. I don’t know why. I left with her.” I kicked at the stony ground, picturing Faula’s smiling face as she raised her glimmering hand over my head, letting magic trickle down. “She did the test on me and discovered I have the ability to manipulate reality. Here, that is called magic.”

            “Wow…I wish I had magic.”

            “It is a great gift, and a greater responsibility. Like Faula, I wanted to use mine to help girls escape from Dark Houses. We worked together for a time. We would portal-jump and figure out which world was best suited for each girl we rescued. But she got trapped on the other side of one when it was destroyed by masks. The last thing she told me was to continue the work, and not to spend time trying to get her back.”

            The silence was painful as I waited for Kailah to realize I had abandoned her aunt to another world. I wouldn’t be able to explain to her Faula’s deep desire to help and her completely self-sacrificing heart. If I had spent ten years creating a portal to get her back, she would have been furious. But these things, I could not express to her niece.

            At last, Kailah responded, quietly and carefully. “It must have been hard for you to let her go.”

            I looked up at her. Her eyes were fixed on her feet but she was staring miles into a different world, as if a portal lay in her thin shoes.

            “It was. She was my best friend. My hero. She meant so much to me.”

            “But you didn’t go after her.”

            “No…all of the portals collapsed when her magic was severed from them. She had created them, you know. Your aunt was an incredibly powerful woman. I’m lucky to have created one in ten years, but she made six in fifteen.”

            Kailah’s jaw dropped.

            I nodded. “Exactly. How did you not know this about her?”

            “My parents didn’t talk much about her. She was an outcast in our family because of her magic.”

            “I understand. I’m sorry to hear that.”

            “I never really thought much about it until now. I wish I had known her better.”

            “I wish you could have. But I’ll tell you anything about her that you want to know, if that helps.”

            Kailah thought for a moment, then said, "Well...I was wondering about you, actually. I have so many questions, I don’t know where to start.”

            Eyes glowed from the forest. I knew they couldn’t see us, but I turned us back toward the house anyway. “Let’s go inside where it’s…warm. I’ll answer your questions tomorrow.”